News In Brief

Criminal Justice Coordinator John Feinblatt stood his ground yesterday at a City Council hearing, insisting that competitive bidding will produce the best quality indigent defense representation. But New York City’s plan to transfer most of the criminal defense work now done by private lawyers under the 18-B program to institutional providers came under fierce attack at the budget hearing conducted jointly by the council’s Finance and Fire and Criminal Justice Services committees. Finance Committee Chairman Dominic M. Recchia, D-Brooklyn, laced into Mr. Feinblatt saying, “This is not about numbers; it’s about leaving out a group of lawyers who have the talent, know-how and knowledge to give people the right representation.” To a round of applause from 18-B lawyers in the audience, Mr. Recchia added, with institutional providers “you don’t know what you are going to get.”

Unruffled by the harsh criticism, Mr. Feinblatt called competitive bidding “a bedrock principal” for the city that will produce “new ideas and new players and provide a basis for comparing the costs of different providers.” He added that “it does not make sense to have institutional providers go through a competitive bidding process” while “granting a monopoly” to 18-B lawyers for the 14 percent of the indigent criminal defense caseload they now handle.